Jun. 12, 2009

The Life and Legacy of Stanley Milgram

We'll talk with Thomas Blass, author of a book about pioneering social scientist Stanley Milgram. Milgram is widely known for his 'obedience to authority' experiment, in which he found that ordinary people were willing to subject others to painful electric shocks simply because an authority figure commanded them to. (The shocks were simulated, and the shockees were actors.) In another experiment, Milgram defined the basis of the 'small world' phenomenon, asking individuals to pass letters through their chain of acquaintances in an effort to deliver it to a target recipient. We'll talk about his life and work.